THE glossy photographs on the wall show smiling children and projects with names like “Avenue of Hope” and “Eid Park”, after the Islamic festival. A glass cabinet displays pomegranates, chilli peppers and wheat that the happy population of Helmand is supposed to grow instead of the opium poppy from which most of them make their money.

A press room is dominated by a poster of the proposed Lashkar Gah Industrial Park, complete with grassy lawns, a pet cat and a passenger jet flying overhead.

Known as Helmandshire, the concrete building inside the heavily guarded British headquarters in Lashkar Gah houses what is surely the most bizarre outpost of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and one of the costliest. By December it will employ 140 people - the size of one of Britain’s larger embassies - for a population of fewer than 2m, smaller than that of Wales.

Most never venture beyond the compound walls. Those who occasionally brave the five-minute drive to the governor’s office do so in armed convoys, surrounded by bodyguards and travelling at high speed. The cracks on the vehicles’ windows from rocks thrown almost every time they go out are a measure of the locals’ appreciation.

The Taliban might be in control just seven miles down the road in Nad Ali, but earnest civil servants boast of British success in winning over the population and creating five zones of development in Lashkar Gah, Sangin, Musa Qala, Gereshk and Garmser.

A day spent in this Foreign Office fantasy land was reminiscent of a propaganda tour I was taken on by the Russians in the dying days of their occupation in the late 1980s. They too controlled the cities and towns but not the roads or countryside.

They spoke of building up Afghan capacity and sent many locals to be trained in the Soviet Union. One of their commissars was Gulab Mangal, now governor of Helmand, the survivor of 13 assassination attempts and the object of much British praise.

The man heading the British project could hardly have better diplomatic credentials. Known as the viceroy of Helmandshire, Hugh Powell is the son of Lord Powell, Margaret Thatcher’s foreign policy adviser, and a nephew of Jonathan, who was Tony Blair’s chief of staff. Another uncle, Chris Powell, an advertising executive, recently visited to advise on public diplomacy.

But Whitehall is not Afghanistan, and Afghans have had more than a century of running rings round the British. Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, Britain’s ambassador in Kabul, was quoted in a cable from a French diplomat last week as saying that the mission was doomed, although the FCO insists this was a “parody” of his remarks.

An American official told me: “You Brits have been screwing it up here for 160 years and continue to do so.”

When I asked for evidence that Britain is improving life in Helmand, Hugh Powell said: “You saw the bustling bazaar.”

I pointed out that we had had to drive through it at great speed in heavily armoured vehicles. When I added that in April 2006, before the British forces arrived, I stayed a week in Lashkar Gah and the bazaar was thriving, he replied: “That’s not what I’ve heard.”

Derided by a senior British military officer as “Powell’s folly”, the place has the feel of a cult where the mantra is “Believe” and anyone who dares question the enterprise is regarded as a Jeremiah.

Apart from advisers based in five government-controlled district centres, the FCO staff mostly stay within the compound walls, producing power point presentations and meeting 152 six-month objectives.

As they are quick to remind visitors, they have given up family life to be there, though the military on the other side of the camp point out that FCO staff receive special allowances and get two weeks back home for every six weeks worked.

Powell’s team has the laudable aim of trying to build governance through mentors for all the provincial ministries, advising on everything from prisons and police to education and strategic communications. Aid to Helmand has increased from £8m in 2006-7 to £32m this year and will rise to £50m.

“We’ve really changed,” said Tim Foy, head of stabilisation. “We’ve realised that building schools and clinics doesn’t cut the mustard. What matters is building the credibility of the Afghan government so we want the state, not us donors, to get the credit.”

This week wheat seed and fertiliser will be distributed to 32,000 farmers. “We’ve provided £6m but told the governor, ‘Don’t say it comes from us, say it’s from the government’.”

Already many of the British advisers are finding themselves tangled in cultural dilemmas. One of the key areas is justice, with locals complaining about its slow pace and corruption among judges and police. The chief justice of Helmand was recently removed after accepting bribes to release kidnappers and murderers.

“The Taliban have been very effective in distributing quick local justice and we need to match that,” said Fraser Hearst, who heads the rule of law department. “Most Afghans depend on an informal system, so our challenge is to provide something that has all the speed of the Taliban but none of the excesses.”

Recent months have seen three children turn up at British bases, seeking protection. One was a 10-year-old girl who had been married off in a tribal deal and was being badly beaten. A nine-year-old boy said he had been raped by Afghan policemen and an 11-year-old boy told them he had been sold as a sex slave to a local warlord.

The problem for the British is many Afghan communities think it perfectly normal to sell daughters to resolve tribal feuds while British taxpayers would be horrified to think they were funding a system that did such things.

Last month Hearst set up a women and children’s justice group to deal with such cases. “We’ve had a fabulous start,” he said, before admitting that one of the women appointed to the group was shot and wounded in Lashkar Gah last week.

British officials acknowledge that their programme is highly dependent on Mangal being kept in office by President Hamid Karzai. But he is the third governor in the two years since British troops went into Helmand.

Mangal himself said: “I know there are people in Kabul trying to undermine me.”

Tribes take on Taliban

A powerful group of tribal militias formed in the past few weeks to challenge the Taliban may hold the key to defeating insurgents in Pakistan’s tribal badlands along the border with Afghanistan, write Dean Nelson and Daud Khattak.

The emergence of the militias, known as lashkars, has raised hopes that many militants may be driven from their mountainous havens.

Just over a fortnight ago, Haji Gul Faraz, a grizzled 80-year-old warrior, raised a 20,000-strong volunteer army in the Dir district, 25 miles from the Afghan border, in a backlash against Taliban who were intruding into his territory.

Their activities brought the threat of an attack by the Pakistani army, so Faraz’s men surrounded the Taliban unit and killed two of the militants.

Tribal leaders in other areas have also raised lashkars, usually named after the local clan. Last week in Bajaur, heads of the Salarzai lashkar ordered their fighters to burn down the homes of any known militants or anyone sheltering them; in the Khyber agency area, Mullahgori tribesmen have already driven out fighters from a Taliban faction.

The lashkar revival comes at a crucial moment for Pakistan’s army, which many feared was losing the war against the militants.

Faraz praised the experience of his own volunteers. “They do not have regular military training but they know how to fight,” he said. They were well armed and could call on the Pakistani army for air support if necessary.

The irony is that the tribesmen do not support the war on terror. They simply want to keep all outsiders - the Americans, the Pakistanis and the Taliban - out of their remote and lawless land.

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